They ask and we delivered!

Thanks again to all who came out this weekend and assisted with Country Fest. The city of South Jordan had requested our help with the 5K Run and Parade like we did last year and we were able to fully staff both and help them go off without a hitch. New this year the city Police Department requested that we man the Command Post and coordinate the communications between Police, Fire, City Admin and Public Works.

This was a great opportunity for our club and we delivered 100%. We received several nice comments about our performance and it looks like we will be invited back to help out next year. 2009 will be a big year for South Jordan as it is the City's 150th anniversary. They have a lot of events planned all through the year, and based on our performance on the 5K, Parade and at Command, we will be involved and active!

We will be holding an event debrief meeting in the coming weeks, so please watch you email boxes for information.

We held our June meeting today at the Daybreak Community Center at our usual time of 09:00. We started off by covering the assignments for Country Fest and what would be expected of us. Below are the links to the documents discussed during the meeting:

Event Plan
Roster
Course Maps

After we talked about Country Fest, Charles (KE6QZU) talked about go kits and shared what he had learned while attending ECOMM. Several great ideas were shared and Charles showed off his kits. There were several people interested in the PWRgate PG40S backup power system. The go kit documentation that Charles was showing will be posted in the Files, Forms & Presentations section when it is available...

Country Fest is right around the corner and we are still looking for a few volunteers. We could still use at least 2 people on the 5K and 3 people on the parade. In addition there is still one command shift open.

If you are available on Saturday 6/21/2008 and would like to volunteer, please contact Brett (KC7IIB) brett [at] brettneilson [dot] com.

CLICK HERE To download a copy of the current roster/schedule.

For our May Meeting we took a tour of the Valley Emergency Communication Center. Special thanks to Dena for taking to time to explain the VECC process and show us around the facility.

External shot of the facility

Tower outside the facility that links dispatchers to the various radio systems

Shot of the South Jordan / Draper PD Dispatch pod. If you look close just to the right of the black sign you can see the top of the active dispatchers head

The active South Salt Lake PD dispatcher

Fire dispatch pods

Physical key used to transfer to the backup facility which is the SLC dispatch center

Typical five screen dispatcher setup

Close-up of the UCAN radio control system which allows dispatchers to talk just about anywhere (on or off the UCAN system).

Our net schedule has changed and we will be going back to a weekly schedule for our check-in nets. At present time we are simply taking check-in, however going forward we will be working to expand the purpose. The concept is for the general population of South Jordan to be able to check-in to a local operator via their established AREA / DISTRICT channel. That operator will then relay to the NCS station on this net. The final step is that the numbers of check-ins would then be passed directly to the City Emergency Management office. The hope is that this will encourage citywide participation and help people to get familiar with how their radios work and what the process is to use them.

It's Ham Fest Time...

May 2-4 ECOMM West will be held in Reno, Nevada. Information about it can be found at their website. Click HERE to go to the ECOMM West site.

In addition, the Weber County Sheriff's Communication Team and Weber County ARES have invited us to the Weber ECOMM Hamfest June 7, 2008.

The Weber Hamfest will run from 08:00 - 13:00 and will offer a few different classes and have some vendor tables to check out.

Click HERE to download a copy of the Weber ECOMM Hamfest Flyer.

More information will be made available in our club meetings and on-air nets.